I'm new here but have been looking for a place to get some ideas thrown out there to hear what people think. There is no specific goal except to share ideas and learn as I go.

The Idea Starts with a simple Question What if we could make a Space tower that utilized wind and upward convection currents for stability and energy creation. (the main difference between this and the space elevator is this would be an enclosed tower for lifting objects to space and would support a space station at the top as both a counterweight and to facilitate the creation of vessels that would use the station as a docking point for supplies direct from earth)

So here are the basic Ideas towards this from the ground up.

First surrounding the base would be rings of reflective solar panels to both capture and reflect light toward the tower creating the initial upward convection current of warm/hot air (If possible by locating the base on a warm point or location with a natural ground heat source would help with the up lift creation.

As the tower rises up the tower itself would be round grooved like a screw directing the currents upward and the surface also solarised for the collection of solar energy (the process of collecting the solar energy would also create heat helping with the uplift)

Along the Tower at intervals would be external wind collection points designed to capture the upward convention current and to also manage the amount of lift captured at any point (preventing a case where too much up life is captured.

Above the base and around the structure would be a ring of atmospheric weather balloons with multiple purposes and uses. First by integrating the balloons connection to the core of the structure and securing the balloons to a ring around the outer base this would provide mid range stability from structural sway while also giving the ability to create both life and counter lift by adjusting the weather balloons own height and lift properties (this also gives a means of distributing the power generated in the tower evenly to the power network and gives a heat source direct to each balloon for greater lift control)

On the internal structure using the counterbalance system opportunity the atmospheric weather balloons create it would be possible to also capture the kinetic energy of the towers natural sway.

The hardest part of course if the initial process of making the tower and for this purposes by making the space station at first essentially a giant shell to act like its own atmospheric weather balloon as the tower rises it will not only save time down the track of the construction but create an early stage up lift taking a portion of the initial strain from the lower part of the structure till the tower is tall enough to function properly with the upward convection capture.

On a side note the internal elevator would be free from external weather conditions and as such be safer and more stable then an exposed wire lifting heavy loads would simply mean timing the lift capture to coincide with the elevators own upward or downward movement.

Another side note and a really fun possibility is that in creating the up lift of air currents once the air currents reach the space station its around this point that they are cooled and reintegrated in the atmosphere (this process could have a huge positive effect on global warming, placing such a tower in a extremely hot climate of desert would mean the surrounding area is cooled and the chance for moister to collect in the newly cooled atmosphere greatly increased)

I apologize if it felt like a lot, effort to condense the ideas was made though maybe they may seem haphazard.

Either way it would be great if you found some of the ideas interesting and wished to question or contribute your thought/ideas to this topic.

Who knows maybe someone will be inspired from an idea presented here or later and put the pieces together to bring such an idea to life.